Beyond reform; beyond rescue; beyond hope
By Henry Lamb
web posted September 27, 2004
The entire world was full of hope in the fall of 1945, when the
United Nations launched its mission to bring peace to a war-torn
planet. The mission failed. Miserably. The U.N. has brought,
instead, a global labyrinth of bureaucratic, power-hungry
institutions, prone to corruption, ineffectiveness, and supreme
arrogance.
Secretary General, Kofi Annan, told the British press, that the
U.S. war in Iraq is "illegal." He does not understand, or accept
the fact that U.S. military action is made "legal" by the U.S.
Congress, not by anything the U.N. may do or say.
Had the U.N. effectively enforced any of its resolutions on Iraq,
adopted since the first Gulf War, perhaps the U.S. would not
have been forced into war. The U.N. has become completely
ineffective.
How long has this bloated institution been discussing, debating,
and delaying action to stop the slaughter of innocent people in
Sudan by government agents? The same government,
incidentally, that was chosen to sit on the U.N.'s Human Rights
Commission in 2001, while the U.S. was kicked off the
Commission.
If the U.N. is good at anything, it is concealment, cover up, and
corruption. There is no better example of this attribute than the
unfolding "Oil for Food" scam run directly out of Kofi Annan's
office since 1997.
The U.N. ignored allegations of corruption prior to the fall of
Saddam. Not until U.S. troops moved into Iraq and confiscated
a truckload of records, did the magnitude of the scam come into
focus. It is now known that at least $10 billion was skimmed
from the program for Saddam and his cronies. Saddam's
"cronies" seem to include high-level officials at the U.N., and
government officials in France, Russia, and Germany, as well.
There is growing evidence that the bombs and bullets used by
the insurgents in Iraq were bought with money from this scam.
Still, Kofi Annan refuses to release the records for independent
review.
The U.N. is beyond reform; beyond rescue; beyond hope.
The United States is charting a new course. In the last four years,
the United States has walked away from the Kyoto Protocol,
withdrawn from the International Criminal Court, blocked the
U.N. global taxation scheme, and launched a war without the
U.N.'s approval. The United States is beginning to lead the
world away from global governance administered by a corrupt,
moribund global bureaucracy, toward a world where national
sovereignty is supreme. Moreover, the United States has
declared that sovereign nations, shadowy organizations, or
misguided individuals who use terrorist tactics against America -
are targets for elimination.
This new direction has spawned enemies abroad and at home.
The global governance proponents know that their dreams will
die without the participation of the United States. Dictators and
tyrants know that their dreams will die if their rule is replaced by
representative governments, which allow people to be free to
pursue their own prosperity.
This new direction is in its infancy. If allowed to continue, it can
transform the world, not by regulatory control, as is the essence
of global governance, but by unleashed opportunity, as is the
essence of freedom.
If the people of Iraq and Afghanistan can build a representative
government, in which the people make their laws based on the
principles of freedom, these nations will become beacons of
hope throughout the Middle East.
President Bush told the U.N. General Assembly last week, that
the advance of freedom always comes at great cost. The United
States paid that cost for the people of Europe a half-century ago.
Now, the U.S., and its coalition partners are paying the cost for
the people of Iraq and Afghanistan.
The cost of freedom is always painful for those who are called
upon to pay. But the pain is far less than that endured by the
innocent victims of ruthless terror. Failure to act - as is the chief
characteristic of the U.N. - or refusal to pay the cost, allows,
and encourages the terrorists, who delight in video taping the
beheading of innocent victims; who capture a school full of
innocent children, and shoot them for sport; who fly fully-loaded
airplanes into the World Trade Centers; and who continue to try
desperately to prevent the birth of democracy in Iraq.
The United Nations has chosen not to pay the cost of advancing
freedom in Iraq, or the cost of relief in Sudan, or the cost of
honesty in the Oil for Food scam. The United States, on the
other hand, has established a clear and honorable goal: the birth
and nurture of freedom as the only remedy to terrorism, and a
new and brighter future for the world.
Henry Lamb is the executive vice president of the Environmental
Conservation Organization (ECO), and chairman of Sovereignty
International.
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